Lila protested.
“That is, with the exception of a handful of men.” Sylvia, however, wasn’t inclined to find herself digging through that haystack in search of a lone needle.
Her cynical but matter-of-fact, accurate speech brought the group to a collective quiet.
“Ohhhh . . . is that really true?”
All gazes—Sylvia’s, too—swiveled over to Clayton, the lone male member, who’d chosen this moment to speak his first public words at the Mismatch Society.
An adorable blush filled his cheeks, and he squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “That is, not what Sylvia . . . Lady Norfolk”—he amended when eyebrows went up—“said about her wishes.”
“Requirements,” Cora corrected.
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t . . .”
“See the difference?” his sister drawled. Leaning across Cora, Brenna patted him on the knee. “Of course you don’t.”
The sisters, delighted in their efforts to educate their brother, weren’t wrong. But neither were they being entirely fair with Clayton, either. In his being here and his willingness to listen and discuss, he’d already proven himself the exception to most men.
Anwen took mercy on a floundering Clayton. “Wishes imply Lady Norfolk would hope for but might settle for something different,” she said in a gentle way that indicated a deeper closeness to this particular pair of siblings. “A requirement means she wouldn’t even entertain the possibility unless a gentleman was in possession of all the attributes and qualities she so listed.”
“Men, by virtue of being men,” Sylvia explained, bringing Clayton’s focus back to her, “are incapable of offering all that. Those, however, are my requirements.” She turned back to the group, looking for the next woman to share an opinion of what would allow her to contemplate that prison sentence of an institution.
Alas, Clayton was apparently not content to let the discussion take that next turn. “But . . .”
“We’ve moved on, Clayton,” Cora chided.
“No.” Sylvia raised a palm. “We should hear him as we would any other member.” She returned her attention to Clayton, as did all the other ladies present.
There was still a tautness to his frame; however, he appeared more at ease than when he’d first begun speaking. “It would be unfair to cast all men as the same.”
“Yes, it would be.” Pouring her first whiskey of the morn, Annalee snorted a laugh. “If they weren’t all the same, that was.” She toasted Clayton, her movements slightly jerky, and she sloshed tiny droplets of the blond brew onto her fingers, indicating it was likely only the first drink the society had seen her take that day.
To Clayton’s credit, he didn’t so much as blink at the sight of a lady indulging in spirits, and at this early hour, no less. Nor did he visibly chafe at being laughed at, either, as all other too-proud men would. “Some men are both capable of that love and devotion and would allow their wives to be actual partners.” His gaze slid from Annalee and leveled on Sylvia, his words, along with his stare, penetrating her. Slicing into her with all the wishes and hopes she’d carried and leaving her exposed once more to the regrets for what had been, and what she’d wanted her life to be.
All things that could never be. “You and I both speak of an ideal. But it’s nothing more than that,” she said, both regretting and resenting her inability to stymie the bitterness that coated her response. “Men want to protect and defend. They want to coddle and keep safe. And even more, they want their power: Over politics.” Parliament, where women couldn’t even attend to observe the laws in discussion. “Over their families. In short, they do not want a partner. Not truly.”
And all those painfully learned truths were the collective reasons Sylvia would never marry again. Ever.
Clayton looked stricken. As no doubt any man would be upon listening to Sylvia’s opinion . . . And yet there was something more there. Some emotion, some thought . . . just something she couldn’t identify or name. And it sent unease traipsing along the small of her back.
“I don’t see it that way,” he said, his baritone a shade deeper and darker, his gaze and attention entirely hers, as hers belonged to him. At some point, the rest of the room and members had melted away. “Just as I don’t see the desire to care for and worry after and look after someone a selfish one.”
She came forward in her seat, the painted-blue French tea table all that was between them. “A woman doesn’t require someone to care after her. She isn’t a child. She isn’t a babe in need of protecting from herself. Women, like men, are born with free will. And with that comes the right to make decisions and mistakes, even if that means she is hurt for them. They are still her own. Or they should be . . .”
As it required clarifying, several members chimed in, “Men . . .”
“I would argue the desire to see a person cared for and loved isn’t reserved for men alone,” Clayton said quietly. “I should hope women would seek to offer the same to their husbands.”
And just like that, he knocked her back in her seat, and the argument from her lips. For he hadn’t been speaking of an arrangement that elevated a husband into the role of provider and protector, but rather one that saw women as equally capable. And God help Sylvia . . . Her heart unfurled from the black cocoon of cynicism it had been wrapped within as a giddy lightness she’d never thought to again know burst back to life in her breast.
“Lord St. John isn’t at all wrong in believing that such marriages exist,” her sister-in-law, Clara, put forward, and Sylvia was ever so grateful for the interruption that broke the enigmatic pull between her and Clayton. “I should know . . .” The former courtesan smiled. “I have one. However”—she raised her voice a slight decibel when a chatter rolled around the room—“I should also remark that Sylvia is also correct. Men have this sense of needing to look after a woman. It is ingrained into society. All men. They can come to believe, as Lord St. John does, that women are equal partners, as entitled as any man to their business and lives and dreams; however, it also often requires a woman to train them in as much . . .” Clara shrugged. “And then, of course, only if a woman decides it is something she wants to invest her heart and energy in.”
Valerie held up her pencil. “Should our next new order of business include the ways in which to train men for those women who decide they might or wish to enter into the married state?”
“I would vastly prefer we stick to the important task of advising women how and why to avoid that miserable state,” Miss Gately volunteered.
Annalee hiccuped. “Agreed.”
And Sylvia should, as well. And yet . . .
Valerie stared intently at Sylvia. “What say you, Madam Leader?”
Madam Leader.
It was a term that had been affectionately and teasingly coined by her living companions after a trio of ladies had arrived on their doorstep and asked to join the society Sylvia hadn’t known they’d formed.
“I . . .” Once more, she felt Clayton’s gaze like a physical touch. Had even her brother, father, or husband given her such undivided attention? She’d always been an afterthought in the lives of the men who were supposed to love her. And there was something empowering in commanding that attention.
She drew in a breath and, before her own past resentments and bitterness could overwhelm her once more, spoke. “I believe that it would be wrong”—and had been wrong—“for us to be closed-minded of members who are interested in entering into that state . . . Affection and love should guide marriages.” Sylvia, however, needn’t have bothered with that latter statement, as chaos had already overwhelmed the room and drowned her out.
Her pronouncement was met with a series of gasps and shouts. “But . . . but . . .”
“Doesn’t that go against shattering the institution of marriage?” Miss Dobson asked in a scandalized voice.
Unable to look at Valerie and Annalee, lest she see the disappointment there, she found Lila with her gaze.
�
��She is disbanding us, isn’t she?” The fear-laden whisper sounded from somewhere in the room.
Cora glared at her brother. “This is all your fault.”
Clayton lifted up his hands as if in surrender.
Annalee gave the gavel an emphatic thump. “We are not disbanding.”
Valerie slid onto the love seat beside Sylvia. “What is it?”
What could she say to a gathering of women who’d coalesced under a vision of something different, a society without strictures placed upon them?
Her younger sister caught her eye, and with a smile, she nodded slowly.
That support gave her the strength to continue. Sylvia glided to her feet. “We came together with the purpose of helping women avoid marriages to unworthy men. Our mission grew to where we came to challenge the position we find ourselves in, as objects. Property. Maneuvered by our family and the world’s expectations into the matrimonial state.” As she spoke, she moved throughout the room, speaking directly to each lady, and to the room as a whole. “And yet”—she paused in the middle of the parlor—“we aren’t a society that disavows the marriage state altogether.” She just decried it for herself.
“Aren’t we?” Lady Annalee asked on an exaggerated drawl.
Sylvia gave her friend a long look.
The other woman winked in return.
“I am confused,” Lady Florence whispered loudly. “I thought that was the whole purpose of the society?”
Yes, and by the writings in the societal pages, that was what the world had come to see them as. And that was what they’d allowed themselves to be.
“Precisely.” Valerie pointed a finger in agreement at the young lady’s musings. “First admitting male members, and now contemplating marriage.” She grimaced. “Not I.”
Sylvia pounced. “And not I, either, but . . .” She turned her attention to the group. “Who are we to dictate whether a woman should or should not wish to marry? To do so makes us no different from everyone else who is dictating that a woman feel or think or do a certain thing. We can encourage others to imagine a world of freedom from marriage, should they so wish it, but to tell them not to marry? Is that truly our place?” Sylvia didn’t allow them a chance to answer that rhetorically posed question. “We want a woman to have the right to choose what she wishes. Every woman must decide for herself whether or not to trust her heart to a man who is worthy.”
It was a risk she, however, would never again take for herself.
When Sylvia concluded, she could have heard a pin dropping, that silence broken by the rustle of the rapid turning of Valerie’s notebook pages. “So . . . you are proposing that we encourage freedom, liberty, and equality for women outside the bounds of marriage, but not dissuade members who find themselves . . . who . . .” The other woman’s large lips curved in a grimace.
“Who fall in love,” Lila helpfully supplied.
Valerie jabbed a finger in Lila’s direction. “That.” She glanced back at Sylvia. “Do I . . . understand the motion correctly?”
Sylvia nodded. “I believe you’ve summed it up sufficiently.”
A hand went up.
“Yes, Brenna?”
“We don’t have to marry, though, do we?” the young lady asked, even as she troubled her lower lip with her teeth. “You aren’t advocating we be open or amenable to that state.”
“Of course not. In fact, I would personally urge you to steer clear, but neither do I believe we should turn away young women who would like to marry.”
Sylvia paused.
Will I protect my sisters by sacrificing myself in marriage? . . . Yes. Yes, I will, because they need their futures secure, and I need to know that if something happens to me, they will not fall at the mercies of a relative. And perhaps you’ll judge me for that, but they come first, and I will happily make that sacrifice for them . . .
Her gaze slipped over to Clayton. An idea rooted around Sylvia’s brain. “Or men,” she murmured to herself.
Cora nodded. “We shall stay, then.”
“Oh, hush,” Anwen muttered. “Neither of you were going anywhere.”
“Are there any objections to the proposed amendment of not completely shunning those amenable to the institution of marriage?”
All the women looked at one another and shook their heads.
“Those in favor of avoiding any possible redeeming discussions on the institution of marriage, indicate so with a show of hands.” Miss Gately was the first to let her hand fly, along with three of the other women present. “And those in favor of helping women train their spouses or prospective spouses, indicate with a hand and an ‘aye.’”
There had been a time, not so very long ago, when even a positive discussion on marriage would have been anathema to her. Since Clayton had reentered her life, Sylvia had reconsidered the absolute way in which she looked at women entering into marriage.
While Clayton sat there, the lone abstention, Sylvia couldn’t quell the fear at all the other ways she found herself weakening toward this man.
And she realized there was just one thing to do . . .
Chapter 16
There were one thousand and one things Clayton should be doing and business he should be attending to. Such was the reality of the cursed Kearsley family. There were estates to get in order. There were sisters to look after. A mother. And with his recent decision, the need to find a wife. One whom he got along with, but also one who wouldn’t be heartbroken when he died like his father before him. And an heir. He needed to see to that, too.
And yet, seated in his offices as he had been for the past two hours, since the conclusion of dinner, the page of his journal, but for one sentence, an assignment, remained blank.
Good God, he was going to be party to young women training men.
Or, he was . . . if he put words to paper.
As it was, he could think only of her.
Sylvia had this effortless ability to make other people look to her. Whereas some of the ladies present that morning had been adamant, refusing to consider Anwen’s question about marriage, Sylvia had been tolerant. She’d been patient when most women in Polite Society had been only cruel toward her. She’d been open-minded, not shutting down those who were in possession of a different opinion than her own.
And he was reminded all over again of all the many reasons he’d liked her and respected her and enjoyed being with her. And he hated that he’d allowed himself to remember all that. Because it had been easier to forget just how very much he wanted her for his own. How he’d not even allowed himself the dream of a future with a woman such as her, because he’d known what his future was.
Of course, there’d been an arrogance even to that very thought, an improbable possibility that she could have loved him. And even as unlikely as it had been that Sylvia could have loved him, he loved her too much to risk the idea of hurting her. And so he’d let go of his dreams, sacrificing them so that she could have the real love she deserved.
Norfolk.
Resentment and rage brought his hands curling into fists.
What had it all been for? The life she’d thought she’d have, and the one Clayton now desperately wanted for her, had never been. Her cynicism toward marriage and love was a testament to that. But then it hadn’t been a secret to the world that Norfolk had a lover. Such was the way of the peerage. They married and gave their name, but not their devotion. Those faithless unions so very different from that of Clayton’s parents, who had entered into a love match. As such, Clayton had been so naive as to believe that because Sylvia and Norfolk had loved one another, their marriage would be a happy one.
Because he could’ve never known, he could have never imagined, that Norfolk wouldn’t have fallen completely head over heels for Sylvia, forgetting and forsaking all other women. Just as it had been even more inconceivable that the affable man Clayton had called his best friend would have turned his marriage into any other cold, empty societal one.
Not for the first tim
e since he’d departed Sylvia’s household and that meeting, her words haunted him.
You and I both speak of an ideal. But it’s nothing more than that . . . Men want to protect and defend. They want to coddle and keep safe. And even more, they want their power: Over politics. . . . Over their families. In short, they do not want a partner. Not truly . . .
And with that handful of sentences, she’d revealed so very much about her marriage to Norfolk . . . and what she had originally dreamed of.
She’d believed herself an obligation of Norfolk, the responsibility he was seeing to as the future marquess. Nor had she been wrong.
And in a way, wasn’t that precisely what had brought Clayton back into her life? A sense of duty to see that she was happy and safe? His gut turned. It was entirely different. For so many reasons. The ultimate being he cared about her. And that surely superseded the original and main motive.
One that she would despise were she to discover the truth.
He steeled his jaw. She won’t.
She couldn’t. There was no way.
A figure slid into position at the front of his desk. “What are you doing?”
With a shout, Clayton exploded to his feet, his heart hammering wildly.
“Darling,” he greeted the pale twin with the moniker he’d used since she was a babe, the only of his sisters to crawl over to him to be picked up. There’d always been a shared bond between them. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, that much was clear,” Daria said in her usual monotone voice. Leaning forward, she peered at the sheet that was upside down before her. “I seeeee.” This time, it was the slightest uptick in the delivery of that elongated word, the tiniest bit of inflection to convey her disapproval.
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